Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Fwd: from Lawrence Pub Philosophy Meeting, 6PM, sunday: Creativity

--- In philomadridgroup@yahoogroups.co.uk, <philomadrid@...> wrote:

Dear friends,

Next Sunday we are going to talk about creativity. From the way themeetings have been developing I am sure that next Sunday will prove ascreative as past meetings. It's like applying a dose of our ownmedicine on ourselves.

Whilst talking with one of the members of the group it occurred to methat it is about time we went to the mountains for some fresh air; andof course there is always Segovia to be done. May I have your ideasplease.

Once upon a time intelligent and clever men busied themselves withalchemy. The intellectual challenge and the lure of a get rich quickscheme motivated a lot of people. And although no one managed toconvert lead into gold, we are still fascinated by an intellectualchallenge or a get rich quick scheme.

Of course we now know why the alchemists were doomed to failure, butthe alchemists themselves knew that they had to be super dupercreative to succeed. So how can we understand creativity? This shouldnot be mixed up with, how can we be creative? Or what does it take tobe creative? Incidentally, if you do know the real answer to thesequestions, let me know.

We usually ascribe to creativity the meaning of something being new ororiginal. And sometimes even something that is out of the ordinary. Ofcourse, there are other ways of being creative, but the new and theoriginal are the real healing makers. For example, the personalcomputer was not really a feat of creation. Computers had existed fora very long time before PC's were invented. And binary calculationseven longer. What makes the personal computer the important inventionit is in our life is the silicon chip. The silicon chip was indeed anact of creativity.

How common is creativity then? By definition creativity, of theheadline making type, cannot be that common, otherwise it wouldn'thave the special status it has. On the other hand it is sufficientlycommon for us to see progress, change and innovation. Change is,indeed, the first philosophical issue we encounter with creativity.

Creativity does bring with it change. We change the way we do things,the way we see things, the way we behave, what we know and so on.Change is so fundamental to existence that we find the firstphilosophers grappling with this very problem. And change, I wouldsubmit, is the basis of science. Without chemical reactions wewouldn't have chemistry, without the changing of mass or energy wewouldn't have physics. In fact without change there wouldn't be auniverse in the first place.

The universe, as a subject, introduces its own issues regarding changeand creativity. What kind of creativity is required to bring about thecreation of the universe? The nature of God argument. Can something becreated from nothing? Ex nihilo argument. Are the laws of physicsuniversally true? The intellectual challenges introduced by quantummechanics.

Can we say that change is a synonym for creativity? No; not if weassume creativity to be always positive and change maybe positive andnegative. Is creativity always positive? We are certainly moreimpressed when creativity has positive implications, but there areenough instances in life not to be the case. We can be creative toinvent new tools to solve problems or even be creative in matters ofaesthetics. But we can equally be creative to exploit people better orjust simply to kill and maim them quicker.

It is reasonable to assume that the universe is the biggest feat ofall creativity; whoever or whatever created the universe had somethinggoing for them. This form of creativity brings about change as opposedto affecting change. It's not som

A Note about the Essays

The essays are meant to give some ideas for the discussions we have. That is, if people feel like using them that way. I also use these essays to express some of my ideas and thinking on the subject.

However, because I usually write these essay at short notice, I have no time to do in depth research on the subject. And any ideas I feel are my own, might have already been expressed by others. But I did not come across them in the limited research I some times do.

Finally, most times I do not have time to polish my essay as they ought to be. I apologise for this.